VPNs with servers in Azerbaijan

Operators and providers process the subscriber’s identifying data and address and the service-use figures on which billing rests. They must protect these data, give them to third parties only on a legal basis, and keep them until the civil-law limitation periods expire (art. 48). Whether a VPN operator is an operator or provider under the Law is not established.

The Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention profile of Azerbaijan records no standalone expedited preservation of stored data: the Criminal Procedure Code’s production order (art. 143) is used, and where production is refused the enforceable route is search and seizure.

Under the Law on Information, the owner of an internet information resource and of its domain name must not allow prohibited information to be placed there: among other things terrorism, calls to violence, hatred or the forcible change of the constitutional order, state secrets, pornography, gambling, insult and defamation, infringement of intellectual property, and anything else a law prohibits (art. 13-2.3).

The competent executive body warns the owner and the host provider in writing. If the information is not removed, or access to the resource or part of it restricted, within eight hours of the warning, it applies to the district (city) court to restrict access (art. 13-3.1–13-3.2, as worded from 1 January 2022).

In urgent cases of threat to the interests of the State and society or real danger to life and health, it may restrict access temporarily by its own decision and must apply to the court at once. The court decides within five days; an appeal does not suspend its decision. Host and internet providers must at once restrict a resource entered in the list of prohibited-information resources, and tell its owner (arts. 13-3.3–3.7).

Articles 147 (defamation) and 148 (insult) of the Criminal Code apply to statements made in public speeches, publicly displayed works, the media or, where publicly displayed, an internet information resource; the internet was added by a law of 14 May 2013. Defamation is the dissemination of knowingly false information discrediting a person’s honour and dignity; insult is the deliberate humiliation of a person’s honour and dignity in an indecent form.

Article 148-1 covers defamation or insult shown publicly under a false username, profile or account. Under the Law on Information, the owner of an internet information resource and of its domain name answers personally for its lawful operation (art. 13-2.1). A legal entity must print its name, organisational form and email address on the site, and an individual their first name, surname, patronymic and email address (art. 13-2.2).

The Telecommunications Law allows limits on the confidentiality of information sent over networks only in cases the legislation sets (art. 38.2), and information about the use of telecommunications networks and the disclosure of telephone conversations may be given only in cases the legislation sets (art. 38.4–38.5). The order of the rows is the security score, and a server’s location is not a recommendation.